Nuts.  Chaos.  Madness.  Big nasty fun.

We’re about 2/3’s of the way through day one of LeMons South, and it’s just been an amazing experience.  We’ve been fortunate that the weather has been cool, but we’ve had our fair share rain today also.  For your first actual wheel to wheel race, this is pretty intense and whacky stuff.  The field is full of e30 BMWs like ours, and IIRC, the 2 leading cars are e30s at the moment.

Yesterday was a practice day that we participated in, and poor Deiter was overheating all day long.  We’d get about 5 laps in and the temp gauge would jump up to abut 230-240 deg…way too freaking hot.  We bled the cooling system over and over and nothing seemed to work.  After we finished the day, we decided to swap in the radiator from Walter’s e30, and bled the system.  Hoping beyond hope that the new radiator would solve our problems.  I’ll cut to the chase…it fixed it.  We’ve been running at about 190-210 degrees all day.

Starting off the day, we went thorugh the tech and the “BSF” rating – the “Bullsh!t Factor.  The judges look at the car and decide how much more than the allowed $500 you spent, and assess you a 1 lap penalty for every $10 overbudget you run.  After some bribing and haggling, we ended up with a 10 lap penalty.  That’s fine.  We’re not here to win, we’re here to finish.

So I’m likely the most cautious driver of the bunch…and I’m the first one that’s involved in car to car contact.  Delicious irony.  We’ve had our challenges with a few black flag penalties, but things are going pretty well.  We have to be smart for the rest of the event and avoid any more contact or offs, though.

All in all…I just have to say wow.

Thanks again to Vincent for the writeup for this past weekend’s work.

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Dog Days of Summer

Work weekend #6 actually started Friday night as Walter and I (VK) worked on fitting the A-pillar sections of the cage in the car.  After a few cuts and some grinding, Walter had them pretty much spot on so we called it at 9:00pm that night.

Rise and shine Saturday!  Myself, and most of the team had our noses to the ground today trying to get Dieter finished.  The newest team member Bernie was the first to arrive (old sailors rise early) and dove right in by finishing the wiring on the radiator fan and cool suit pump.  Once Walter finally arrived (the only old guy that likes to sleep late!) he and Bernie finished cutting and notching the bars for the A-pillars, doors and roof.  We all learned as we went along so each bar fit better than its predecessor.  Next I proceeded to weld everything together and sometimes having to stand on my head to do so.  After all was said and done, the cage fits pretty nice and we were all proud of it.

Saturday afternoon saw the arrival of other team members Steve and Kendt who worked on completion of the face of Dieter.  He now has blood-shot and angry-looking beady eyes.  To top it off Kendt added the classic P-40 era nose art to the car adding to Dieter’s snarling appearance.  Walter also built a plexi-glass mutt to adorn the roof complete with running rear legs and the names of all our team members.  We should stand out in the crowd for sure!

With the cage in place, most of Sunday was spent with Bernie and me trying to fit these at in the car.  The Kirkey seat is a quality unit for sure, but adapting it to Corbeau sliders sucked big time.  It fought us the entire way.  We must have taken it in and out 10 times before it was finally done.  Words of wisdom if you decided to build a car with multiple drivers…make sure they are all the same height!  Installing sliders (that actually slide) was the hardest thing on the entire build.  The harness was not very difficult, however the angle of the shoulder belts was too great, thus possibly dangerous, and not within the safety rules.  Therefore we had to fabricate a custom mounting bar to attach them properly.

After the seat and harness were done the fuel line had to be repaired before we could fire Dieter up.  Why did the fuel line need to be repaired you say?  Because drilling new mounting holes for that d@mn seat caused me to drill through one!  A length of rubber hose and a couple of hose clamps did the trick and nothing was leaking so we called it done.

With the fuel line fixed and the roll bar padding installed, we decided this dog was ready for a walk.  I hopped in (with two door bars hopping isn’t easy!) and turned the key.  The battery and starter were strong, but this dog was tuckered out.  I tried for 20 minutes to get it started it just wasn’t happening.  I was dog-tired (pun intended) and pissed by now and wondering why the hell we started with a BMW in the first place.  The Germans can surely make something simple rather complicated.  Luckily Bernie has tons of experience with stubborn starting engines and knew exactly what to do.  A few shots of ether into the intake and it fired right up!  I was relieved to get this car started and out of my garage.   I was so excited in fact that I buzzed my neighborhood before parking in on Bernie’s trailer.  I’m sure my neighbors just loved seeing (and hearing) a loud-a$$ dog-themed car speeding down their quiet street!

Next up will be our “shakedown” event which is the THSCC autocross this coming Saturday July 19^th.  If all goes well the next time the car is driven will be at the actual event at CMP.  Look for us, stop and say hi, and we hope to see you there!

Just a quick note to say thanks to Lee Bolerjack for joining the team as a sponsor.

Located in Carthage, NC, Bolerjack’s specializes in servicing fine European cars (which makes you wonder why he’d want his name on ours!).  They also have a number of cars running in NASA. Contact them at (910) 603-1010.

You know…life sometimes gets in the way of this whole racing thing.  Team member Mark Cooper and I had a conversation on 7/1, and Mark has decided to give up his spot as a DoriftoDog driver.  Mark’s business (Performance Chassis, Tires and Wheels) has him busier than a 1-legged man in a butt kicking contest.  Mark has stayed on as a team sponsor, and will be helping us with tires, and donating a much needed alignment to Dieter.  Team DoriftoDogs is bummed to lose a team member, but we’re glad to retain a sponsor.

Fortunately for us, we have a new team member who’s been looking for team to join.  We welcome Bernie Baake (that’s pronounced “Bah kah” for those at home) to the team.

Bernie is our elder statesman and we’re happy to have him on board.  Bernie retired after spending 33 years as a Marine Corps civilian advisor on aircraft weapons systems.  He’s always owned sports cars-  MGs, Triumphs, a Sunbeam tiger, and a few American muscle cars.  He started driving in autocross and HPDE in 2004, when he was diagnosed with stage 3c colon cancer with lymphatic involvement.  Bernie is a survivor.

Bernie has done about 24 HPDE’s and a bunch of autocrossing in the past four years.  He currently owns a 2004 Corvette that’s louder than Walters Camaro (no small feat), a 1986 C4 Corvette track car, a 1990 Miata, a 2005 Mini and a small fleet of other tow and utility vehicles.

Bernie also brings a new sponsor to the team – Pets Companion Inn – a business that he runs with his wife Gwen (also an avid autocrosser in the family MINI).  Pets Companion Inn, just north of Durham, NC provides high quality pet boarding.  Check out their website or give them a call at 919-477-0618.

Glad to have you aboard!

This post is courtesy of Vincent – thanks VK…
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After work weekend #5 our little puppy is growing into a big dog.  Walter, Kendt, and myself (VK) spent the weekend in my new garage whipping this puppy into shape. Take a look at the latest pics and you’ll see Deiter sporting his new studded collar and leash.  Our resident midget (er…little person) Kendt as is turns out is quite the artist and he has Dieter looking good.  Our king of bling VK also added his touch with the fluorescent yellow car number which is what else…“K9”.  Be on the lookout for an added bling feature via the old guy Walter to adorn the roof real soon.

Our “u-weld it” cage unfortunately turned out to be we ”cut-n-notch it” too ordeal.  The good news is after a few hours of grinding, fitting and welding the rear half of the cage is complete.  The bad news is we think that was the easy half.  Thankfully we found an excellent tube notching program free on the intarweb called Tubemiter to aide in the process.  A huge Dofifto Dog’s thanks goes out to author Giles Puckett!

Stay tuned for next weeks episode…same Dog-gone time…same Dog-gone channel!

With the great progress we made the other weekend, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel – we’re almost ready for the event.  Kendt has been trying like mad to get a status on our “you-weld-it” cage, as that’s our last major hurdle.   He finally got a status today that the cage it ready and will be shipped ASAP.  Whew.

I know a few of the guys will be working  on the car this upcoming weekend, as well as the weekend of July 4th.   We hope to have all the mechanical stuff and 99% of the cosmetic stuff taken care of before our public debut of the car at the 7/19 Tarheel Sports Car Club Autocross at the old Sanford Airport.  We’ll be begging for more sponsorship and seeing how well the car runs that weekend.  It should be a decent test, but no where near the beating the car will take a CMP a week later.

Last weekend, Tarheel ran an event at CMP, and the feedback on the changes and improvements to the track is very encouraging.  There seems to be a common theme that the track now has more of a flow to it, but it’s just as hard on brakes as before, if not harder.  Since we’ll be running a subset of the course, I know our speeds will be way down, and hopefully that will be to our advantage.

Stick with us readers.  It’s going to be interesting.

Here’s a gentle reminder painted on the bottom of the car…

This past weekend was a big work weekend for the DoriftoDogs…ok, at least I consider it a big weekend since I made the trip down from MD. We had the majority of the team in attendance this weekend, and we needed as much help as we could get. Vincent, Kendt and Walter had been slaving away on the car for the last few weeks whenever they had a free moment. Since I hadn’t seen the car in person in a few months, I could tell right away the amount of progress they had made. Vincent had also taken the time to generate a pretty extensive punch list of items for us to tackle this weekend. I’m proud to say that we completed much of that list. We also took some pictures to share with you guys

continue reading "Work Weekend #4"

Well, team captain Tom has ordered me to make the post on the latest work weekend, because *ahem* he wasn’t there . Just me and VK this time, but we got a lot done for two people on a *HOT* day.

Holy crap – I never would have thought this much work would be involved!  For anyone who thinks this race is just about gutting a cheap crapcan, slapping on some decorations, and heading out on track, I’ve got news for you.

We’ve reached the stage of getting down to the real nitty-gritty – it is almost discouraging to see the car look *less* prepared at this point.  Thankfully everyone on the team has great ideas to contribute.  I was a little worried about being the biggest newbie on the team.  I think I’ve proven my skills at destroying parts we don’t want are second to none!

Every change is done with the idea of simplicity and making sure we last the entire event (our #1 goal).

No senior moment for the camera this time -
The latest build pics are up on the gallery

The deadline for all the LeMons fees is this upcoming Friday (6/6), but I sent it in a couple of days early just to make sure that the PayPal transaction had no issues. With 6 drivers and 1 crewmember, LeMons isn’t exactly cheap, but when you back away and look at it, you do get a lot of value. Our event at CMP will be roughly 14 hours of racing, with 7 on Saturday and 7 more on Sunday. Assuming that our car survives to the end, that’s still a lot of seat time for each driver.

There is also the intangible value of doing something this novel. When I explain the premise to folks who aren’t familiar with it, you get 2 basic reactions – “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of” or “That is SOOOOO cool. I wish I could do that.” The LeMons events get a lot of press, as people just love to watch a trainwreck. I’m sure we’ll see a motley assortment of automotive chaos, lots of rattle can paint jobs, and just general silliness at every corner. Being that part of our dog gimmick will require me to wear a dog collar around my neck when not in the car, I’ll be doing my part.
As of 6/4, we added a new sponsor to team Doriftodogs – KNS Brakes. Ken at KNS is supplying Hawk HT-10 pads, new rotors, and ATE fluid for our car. CMP is a notorious brake killer, so we asked James Clay at Bimmerworld for a suggestion of what we’d need to make it through the weekend. We’re doubling up on front rotors and pads per his recommendation.

What good is a blog site if you don’t have pictures to show of your workday? Well…you’ll have to get over it this one time. Vincent’s camera memory card had a senior moment and forgot all the pictures he took this weekend.

The majority of the NC contingent met at Steve’s new shop this weekend to hack away at the car. Steve’s new shop currently has a lift, so work was much easier for all involved. The shop also gives us indoor storage for the car for a while, allowing the guys to start in on some of the lightening and removal tasks that the event strongly recommends\requires. This weekend’s crew was Steve, Vincent, Walter, and Kendt. Mark was working, and Les was elbow deep in a suspension/bushing job on the new-to-him C4. Me…I was home in MD, having a fantastic Memorial Day with my wife, thanks for asking.

Here’s the list of accomplishments for this weekend.

• Door glass removed
• Side glass removed
• Rear glass removed
• Power window motors & tracks removed
• Taillights removed
• Headlights & bezels removed
• Kidney grill removed
• Gas tank door removed
• Front hood hinge removed
• Trunk latch removed
• Various body trim pieces removed
• New high mounted rear brake light installed (we kinda want our competitors to know that we’re trying to stop, now that the tail lights are gone)
• Hood and trunk pins installed (they’re cheap, and the likelihood of damage to those 2 panels that might keep us from opening them is pretty high)
• Fixed a vacuum leak to the fuel pressure regulator

From the stuff that was removed, if it can be sold, we’re gonna try and sell it. If you want something from the list, leave a comment here with your email address and we’ll get back to you ASAP. Otherwise, eBay, here we come.